Thursday, 11 February 2016

A plan must be made for ‘life after Isis’ in the Middle East

A plan must be made for ‘life after Isis’ in the Middle East In the Second World War, Allied leaders planned for the post-war world – a ‘United Nations’ – years before the conflict ended. We must do the same for the Middle East.Robert Fisk Independent/UK 8 February 2016

There are
times in the Middle East when nightmares and delusions take the place of the
real and growing tragedy which is consuming the Arab lands. More and more
earnest are the calls for peace as more and more nations launch more and more
air raids, from Kabul to the Mediterranean, and down through Sinai and Yemen
and across to Libya. The bloodbath is real, yet no one plans for a future – for
“Life after Isis”. By my reckoning, there are now 11 different national air
forces bombing five different Muslim countries to “degrade and destroy” their
enemies. But what comes afterwards?

History
teaches us that for 100 years now, the people of this magnificent, dangerous
region have sought justice and received only injustice. Foreign and proxy
occupation, corruption and dictatorship – the hands of the torturer – have
taken from them the one value which so many millions finally sought in the
great Arab awakening of 2011: dignity. Yet what are we doing about this? Why
have we never addressed the great historical injustices which have caused this
human earthquake?

Instead,
we conjure up imaginary armies – as if the real ones aren’t frightening enough.
We dream up 35,000 Iranian Revolutionary Guards in Syria when perhaps there are
a thousand – and 20,000 Afghan Hazara Shia and hordes of Iraqi Shia militiamen
in Syria and another 10,000 Hezbollah – and this is before we even remember
David Cameron’s ghost army of 70,000 warriors ready to fight for democracy. The
Turks are about to invade Syria, we are told, but they haven’t. Then there are
the thousands of Saudi soldiers which our favourite Gulf monarchy is ready to
send to Syria to fight Isis. This is insanity. Europeans react with horror when a million refugees cross their borders – yet while it’s informative to know that Hungary thinks it is the frontier of Christendom, no one has suggested that we need to address the original problems of all these poor people. We obsess about persuading Turkey to stop the refugees and asylum seekers pouring into Europe, but without any long-term planning for a new Middle East which will reduce their numbers.Today, I
cannot find in my files any record of a single Arab or world leader who has
spoken of what the Middle East might look like in the future. Why can’t we plan
ahead now?

At the
end of the First World War – the war which destroyed the Ottoman empire and
crushed the last caliphate a few years later – many of the American diplomats
in the collapsing empire and the NGOs of the time (they were missionaries then,
of course) argued for one great Arab nation; one in which Muslims – and
Christians and Jews and other minorities – would be citizens of a land which
stretched from Morocco to the Mesopotamian-Persian border (the frontier of what
is now Iraq and Iran). But of course the US lost its interest in such Wilsonian
dreams, while the Brits and French had other plans and moved in to take the
“mandates” of their choice.

Thus
began the age of humiliation, of Western occupiers and local butchers and
hangmen which stripped all these peoples of their honour. And now, 100 years
on, we see its frightening apogee in the gruesome “caliphate” which is
spreading Ebola-like around the world. But what the poor old Middle East needs
now are not more air strikes, but an intellectual search by all those who still
live there – and by those who have fled – for what kind of a homeland they want
to live in.

So for
starters, why not plan for a new Middle East founded not on oil and gas but on
education? Not on dictators’ palaces but on universities; not on torture
chambers but on libraries. Islam lay at the heart of the ancient universities
of the Middle East. Scholarship was not dominated by Islam – faith and religion
were themselves enhanced and enriched by knowledge. From education comes
justice. And justice – only justice – will destroy Isis.

I have
noted before that Abu Dhabi has placed a special need on first-class university
education for its citizens. And across the Middle East, lack of education lies
like a cancer. For lack of education actually is a substance that spreads. Look
at the tens of thousands of Syrian refugee children in Lebanon who will one day
return to their ruins without even the gift of literacy to pass on to their own
future children. Schools and universities are going to be more deadly to Isis
than any air-strike. That’s how you deal with nightmares.[Abridged]

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About Me

I am not an academic. I have been a commercial beekeeper in New Zealand for most of my working life, except for four years in detention as a conscientious objector during WW2. Those years were particularly formative for me. I have retained my horror of war and the suffering still being caused by armed conflict and violence in so many places. My convictions have been nurtured by my Methodist church connection, though my pacifism has been deplored by some good people.

Expect no slick answers here; I am still a searcher myself. How can a just and peaceful society develop from this chaos, and what are the obstacles in the way?

Most of the articles posted here are from other sources. I look for writers, wherever they can be found, who can throw light on what is happening in our world. If you would like to learn a little more about myself, please read this biographical interview series conducted by my granddaughter, Kyla.